[TR] Green Giant Buttress - Dreamer (and bits of Botany 101 and Safe Sex) 9/6/2008

[OlympicMtnBoy]

Trip: Green Giant Buttress - Dreamer (and bits of Botany 101 and Safe Sex)

 

Date: 9/6/2008

 

Trip Report:

I promised my GF we'd spend Sunday together, so I was only up for a daytrip on Saturday. Fortunately that worked well for Holly too so off we set for Dreamer.

 

I'd never been climbing at Darrington before and she had only gone as far as the approach with a hangover once. I managed to borrow a 4Runner and we left town around 7:15

 

That road is in pretty good shape actually, it's just the trees lining both sides that are having problems. I guess after all the talk of heading in there with a chainsaw on this board, that road never got cleared. We had to hike an extra mile or so over lots and lots of down trees. At least the route was easy to find. We followed descriptions from Nelson and MattP's excellent website and seem to have found the right route (make sure you cross the sidestream and look for the trail on the other side, it looks like many folks have tried to head straight up).

 

 

 

 

It was kind of a crappy approach with some definite crawling through slide alder, but not all that bad really. We did go pretty slow though, arriving at the base at 11:15 to find Nick and Jeremy on the first pitch already.

 

We weren't entirely sure where the proper start was and we guessed we might be faster than the other guys so we kept heading up the ledges on the right until we decided to rope up and climb. I think we actually climbed the first two pitches of Botany 101 in the obvious dihedral (not bad actually), then followed some slab and bolts left and up on Safe Sex. Not being exactly sure what we were one, but having fun with the moderate climbing, we just kind of picked a line and ended up at bolted belays along the way.

 

 

 

I followed some fun cracks up and to what I thought was two bolts but really was a slung bush and one bolt just to the right of the "Dreamer Undercling" where we found Nick and Jeremy a half pitch below us. We decided to make the pass and join Dreamer here below the Blue Crack for the crux pitches instead of finishing on Safe Sex. Holly led the first few dirty moves of the undercling until it cleaned up at the intersection of the standard route. After a bit of whining and not looking at the topo she headed up the wrong way and had to lower back and go back the right way. We apologized profusely to the guys who ended up having to wait for us for 15 mins and hurried on (after I got the rope out of a crack). We started cruising again and didn't see the guys much after the next pitch. The two crux pitches here were fricking awesome (Holly led the blue crack and I did the undercling traverse and fun face bit). The next two sporty sport pitches were also way fun (follow MattP's topo and not Nelsons).

 

 

We did one more short pitch to the top and finally took our shoes off and enjoyed the rays of sun that had finally broken through the clouds. It took us around 4 hours from the time we roped up.

 

 

 

After a nice summit break we started down and ran into the other party on the 2nd rap (single rope rap from the summit, double rope raps from there). We did pretty well heading down although the flakes near the Blue Crack tried damn hard to catch the ropes. One rope actually threaded itself behind a large flake in a loop, emerging 15 feet down the wall). I ever so carefully threaded one end through to get ride of the loop and then pulled half the rope back out. We made it back to our packs in an hour and a half, did one more rap, and then hiked out, getting back to the car just before dark at 8:00.

 

Another great climb with a great partner. Sorry again for holding you guys up in that spot, glad you made it out alright. I'm definitely going to have to head in there again some day and do some other variations.

 

More pics are here in case my embedded ones don't work: http://picasaweb.google.com/matthiesen/DarringtonGreenGiantButtressDreamer

[mountainmandoug]

Sounds like a good day out Stewart. I'll have some time to kill around Leavenworth next week if you might be in the area and want to do something. In any case have fun in Yosemite.

[mec]

Nice TR, Darrington is great place to go for some solid granite!